


The Stars Guide You Home

by Emerald_Ashes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Escape, Gen, Imprisonment, POV Second Person, Pre-Series, Shiro's perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8668651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerald_Ashes/pseuds/Emerald_Ashes
Summary: After a year of immense brutality, and suffering in captivity Shiro finally escapes.





	

You timed the routine for weeks now. How many steps the guards took before they turned the corner, how many times they made rounds, and how many paces to the escape pods. Ironically, they were only a few halls away from your cell. Always taunting you as they dragged you back to your stagnant prison, beaten and bloodied every other night. An endless cycle.

Tonight you would escape, or tonight you would die trying.

Escape would have to be in the later night hours, or what was believed to be night—you weren’t sure about time anymore. Not for a long while now. There was only one guard patrol in the evening that would bring water rations to the captives while they were supposed to be sleeping, or in some cases unconscious. Each cell door had a slot that would slide open for less than ten seconds as the drop was made. That was when you would have to get out. It would be the only opportunity.

You could hear the footsteps echoing down the corridor. Heart fluttering in your chest with adrenaline. There was only one chance for this, and the consequences of what would happen if something went wrong were not something you could afford to think about at the moment.

Three.

Two.

One.

The slot slid open with a slight whine of metal grating against metal. A gloved hand flings in a sloshing pouch of water, and then starts to retract. You dart.

You’re strong enough now you can easily dislocate that wrist in a second. But you pin it against the back of the door so that the guard cannot move.

“If you call out for help, I’ll tear it off. And then your head is next,” you whisper through the door, hoping you sound menacing enough. The guard hastily agrees, valuing self-preservation above the containment of prisoners.

Outside, the door beeps a clearance code and then opens halfway. You leave the insufferable cell, and before the guard has a chance to contact backup, you punch him hard enough to knock him out. No chance for something to go wrong this way.

Earth was your goal now. Always has been. You’ve heard rumors circulating of a weapon. Even the lower ranked officers aboard the ship have been discussing it. Something so powerful it’s going to rip apart the universe. You need to get home. Warn everyone. If that’s the last good thing you manage to do. The aliens had already entered Earth’s galaxy once.

And Earth, they were defenseless. Earth was nothing compared to the aliens, these Galra, that you had been with for…however long.

You quietly made your way down to the hall with the escape pods. There was no time to free others with you. It would bring too much unwanted attention.

You press your hand to the scanner on the wall, repeating the action you’ve seen passing through countless doors while aboard the ship. The scanner rejects you. It was your biological, flesh hand. Quickly, you pull it back and press down the cybernetic one, the door releases, and grants access to the escape pod.

And… it’s completely alien.

Of course it is.

This wasn’t going to be like the space shuttle you piloted to Kerberos. You can’t read the symbols, or how to program it. There’s obviously a control panel. Maybe it has voice recognition too.

“Enter coordinates,” you say out loud, waiting for a response.

“Awaiting coordinates,” a computerized voice replies.

There’s a commotion in the hall from where you just left. Moments pass and then an alarm blares. You shout the celestial coordinates for at least the Milky Way Galaxy. Something you had repeated to yourself countless nights alone and hurt. Something familiar. A promise. A prayer to one day return to Earth.

The ship acknowledges the coordinates for home’s solar system. You strap into the seat, hands on the controls, although you know you won’t be much good at piloting.

“Launch!” you yell, hoping the computer is sophisticated enough to start a self-launch into space.

The airlock opens and in seconds you’re jettisoned into space. The stars open up before you for the first time in what felt like years.

You were free. Finally.

But it didn’t taste as sweet as you hoped. Mainly because there was danger still lurking on the horizon. And an alien battleship on your shrinking into the distance as you speed away from it.

You closed your eyes. Just taking a moment to relax your tired body, allowing the tension that wound your muscle so tight to relax. There were so many thoughts swirling around in your mind. And also too many holes. It was painfully clear that you couldn’t remember everything. Perhaps that was for the best. You didn’t know how long you’ve been a prisoner. Or how long ago you had lost your arm, just that one morning you woke up and it was gone, and replaced. The worst part was that you didn’t even know how it had been lost in the first place. Yet that was probably something that should be left alone for the time being too.

Suddenly the shuttle rocked violently. “Rear thruster has been damaged,” the computer announced.

But somehow in your reminiscing Earth had come into view. Were the Galra so close that it had only taken the ship a short while to get there?

No, it doesn’t even matter. Focus on landing.

“Continue course,” you tell the computer, gritting your teeth through the turbulence.

The ship could break up upon entering the atmosphere. Hopefully, it would hold together long enough.

“Search out planet coordinates,” you say to the computer. From orbit you could only vaguely guess where the Galaxy Garrison was located. They would be best equipped to help in this situation, if only you could get there in one piece.

“Awaiting coordinates,” the computer responded once more, but it came out with more static.

You supply the coordinates as the ship rocks violently upon entering the Earth’s stratosphere. The haul of the ship starts to heat up, and you’re shooting through the sky at a speed that is much too fast for a safe landing. The desert spans out below.

And the computer is screeching a warning that the autopilot functions have been lost. You grab the controls, and try to steer the ship so that it will at least be able to land. You’re so close to your destination, but the ship is too far gone, having sustained damage in space. The ship is hurtling towards the ground, and you’re only just able to level it off before being bucked out of your seat. Your head smacks the control panel right as you crash into the sand.

Things immediately go dark. You feel the impact as the escape pod skids through the desert.

And then it’s quiet.

Consciousness left you for a minute, but then you’re vaguely aware of the heat surrounding you. Too much to be comfortable. And you try to crawl away, but something pulls you forward instead. Something was gripping your arms. The touch is not friendly, and you panic. How did the the Galra find you so quickly?

But you blink and it’s not them. It’s someone wearing a hazmat suit. The unfriendly hands roam your body, even when you try to shake them off.

“Captain Shirogane?” The name is so foreign at first you don’t even realize it’s directed at you. When was the last time you had been addressed in that way?

“Shiro?” another voice asks. The hands on him weren’t alien at all. They were human.

Things start to clear. “Let go!” you demand, but they don’t listen. Instead straps are pulled tight against your torso, and the sky above you moves until it melts and morphs into white fluorescent lights.

It looked like a science lab, setting you on edge. The med techs were wandering about the lab, collecting things, and hovering over you while writing things down.

“H-hey, what are you doing?” you finally ask after no one offers an explanation.

“Calm down, Shiro,” replied one of the masked scientists. “We have to keep you quarantined until we can run some tests on you.”

“You have to listen to me!” you shout, lifting your head off the table. They just ignore you. It wasn’t any different than before. And these people were humans. These were people that knew you, and you more than likely you respected them at some point. Now they were just treating you like a sick and dangerous animal.

“They destroy worlds!” you try to express the danger Earth was in, hoping to draw their attention. “Aliens are coming!”

“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?” one of the scientists questions, sounding more like Commander Iverson with each word. And so far doing an excellent job of snubbing everything that has been said.

“I don’t know,” you snap. “Months. Years! Look, there’s no time,” you press against the straps holding you down, trying to free yourself. In a corner of your mind underneath the panic, it saddens you that humans aren’t treating you any better than the hostile aliens.

To them you were the alien now.

“Aliens are coming here for a weapon. They’re probably on their way,” you reason, but they still pay no mind to your words; bustling about you like any other experiment. “They’ll destroy us. We have to find Voltron!”

“Sir, take a look at this,” one of the suits comes over to your right side. “It appears his arm has been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic.”

“Put him under until we know what that thing can do,” Iverson instructs. The words send dread rippling through you.

 “What? No! No, no don’t put me under! There’s no time. ”

You struggle more. But a mask is placed over your face, and your body goes slack entering a weird sort of twilight. Before completely succumbing to the anesthesia, you hear them murmur in amazement over your arm.

It was black, and unfortunately all too familiar. A lot of time you think had been spent this way, most often you were an unwilling participant. But slowly you were able to pull yourself from the abyss, and wake up. Feeling flowed back into your limbs like water trickling through a creek.

You tense, instinct telling you to be aware of your surroundings first before making any drastic moves. Something brushes against your shoulder, your eyes snap open, and you grab whatever was near you.

The first thing you register is that you’re not even strapped down. The second, there was a startled pair of eyes watching you. Young eyes. Recognizably human.

You look around and take in that you’re in a house. No longer under the sterile lights of a lab. The sunlight is starting to filter in through the white dusty curtains hanging from the window.

“Shiro,” a tentative voice calls.

You shift your attention back up to the body next to you, eyes locking with theirs.

“Keith,” you say and feel yourself smiling. Oh god, how long has it been since you’ve smiled? The pure happiness from seeing him was almost overwhelming. “What’s going on?”

“Long story short: we rescued you from the Garrison after you crash landed,” he motioned to a three person group huddled in the corner still dozing.

Rescue. Right. “Thank you.”

That wasn’t sufficient gratitude, but it was all you were capable of at the moment. Your mind was reeling.

“Welcome back,” Keith sat on the small table in front of you. You were still gripping his wrist, but you let go so you wouldn’t hurt him. Keith smiled, and cautiously placed his hand back on your knee. Maybe afraid to spook you. But he had always been a little standoffish with affection too. “It’s…it’s so good to have you back.”

“I’m glad to be back,” you pull Keith forward into a hug, relishing in the contact. It had been eons since you felt something like a warm embrace. So much had happened, some things you couldn’t even recall. Miraculously you returned to Earth. And now, now you were finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy. This....is this any good? I hope it's at least decent. I always do this to myself. I like to practice with second person POV, and this just kind of happened. I've read through the story so many times and hopefully caught most of the tense shifts. But I wanted to write a little something this weekend (I've been slightly preoccupied with Pokemon Moon, and haven't done much else except play that game).


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